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NEW DELHI, SEPT 5: As Prime Minister Narendra Modi went live on Teacher’s Day, connecting with children throughout the country with the aid of television screens, a sizeable section of teachers from several States stood out in the rain in the Capital, protesting against the pittance paid to them as salaries.

Noting that India faces a big challenge to improve the quality of teaching and learning outcomes in schools, President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said the nation needs more competent and willing teachers to achieve these objectives.

Teachers should imbibe in students the values of tolerance, secularism and inclusiveness to make the world a safer and better place to live in, he said addressing the National Teachers Awards function here coinciding with Teachers’ Day.

Four years after it became an Act and a year of implementation later, it is becoming very clear that the Right to Education Act (RTE) is deeply flawed. The Act was called a sieve by this author in this very publication in 2010, and much of what was predicted has come to pass. It was a significant piece of social re-engineering where the intent was to bring the rich and the poor to the same classroom. The RTE Act was a daring piece of legislation for two reasons.

On 5 September, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered the Teachers' Day speech from New Delhi's Manekshaw Auditorium. It was telecast live by TV channels across India. Modi also spoke to children about various issues surrounding education in the country.

New Delhi: Concerned over poor learning standards in schools, the human resource development (HRD) ministry on Tuesday launched a new scheme to improve mathematics and language skills of students across India and vowed to plug the infrastructure gaps in all schools by utilizing portions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds.

The 86th Constitutional Amendment Act 2002 makes education a Fundamental Right for children in the age group of 6-14 years by stating "the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine". The Act further provides under Article 51-A (k) that it shall be a fundamental duty of every citizen of India who is a parent or guardian to provide opportunities for education to his child between the age of six and fourteen years.

NEW DELHI: The broad contours of the Modi government's 'padhe bharat, badhe bharat (PBBB)' was unveiled on Tuesday as a nationwide sub-programme of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

In reality, PBBB with emphasis on early reading and writing with comprehension and mathematical skills is a repackaged and limited version of what was finalized during the UPA II. In January, the HRD ministry had finalized exhaustive class-wise learning indicators that students from class I to VIII are expected to achieve. PBBB booklet is limited to class II and standardizes outcomes.

KOCHI: The Kerala high court on Thursday dismissed petitions filed by two students who sought admission to Class I at Kendriya Vidyalayas in Kochi under provisions of the Right to Education Act (RTE). Justice A M Shaffique considered petitions filed by Aiswarya S Shankar of Thoppumpady and Vignesh T S of Palluruthy. Kendriya Vidyalayas had allegedly denied admissions to both students to Class I.

Bhubaneswar: Odisha is facing an acute shortage of teachers to teach science and mathematics in schools. Worried over the situation, the state government has urged the Centre to relax the minimum qualification for recruitment of teachers as stipulated by the Right to Education (RTE) Act. The state government has been in a fix over recruitment of teachers in schools as the number of trained teachers produced in the state is very low compared to the requirement, official sources said.